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Tuesday, 7 December 2010

The Chainsaw Gang - who are they?

Yesterday I wrote about The Chainsaw Gang's Twelve Deaths of Christmas blog tour, and in that post I promised to tell you more about who the individual members are. I know that many UK readers of The Book Zone will have seen these details elsewhere, but for those of you who haven't, in alphabetical order, The Chainsaw Gang are:

Alex Bell

Fantasy author and creator of the ultimate anti-hero, Lex Trent. Read Lex Trent vs The Gods and I guarantee that you will love him, and you will hate him, possibly in equal measures by the time you get to the end of the book. But you will still want more, and fortunately that is what we can expect in 2011 with the release of the sequel, Lex Trent: Fighting Fire With Fire.

Sarwat Chadda

The brains behind the formation of The Chainsaw Gang, and if they had a leader then I guess it would be Sarwat. His Dark Goddess, the second book featuring kick-ass modern day Templar Billi SanGreal, was my Book of the Month for July and is a very strong contender for my Book of the Year.

Stephen Deas

I have only recently finished reading Stephen's debut YA fantasy book, The Thief-Taker's Apprentice, and I hope to get my review written very soon. All I will say for now is that if you are aged 11+ and enjoy fantasy then you will most likely love this book.

Sam Enthoven

Sam is a total legend. I love his books, and having had the pleasure of meeting him several times I can attest that he is a really nice guy with an almost overwhelming passion for writing and for horror. It is hard to believe that he has only had three books published, the most recent being the fab Crawlers. I loved Crawlers, but if you want the ultimate action horror, with a heavy does of Sam's infectious sense of humour, then his debut, The Black Tattoo is also a must-read.

Steve Feasey

The man who, in a world dominated by vampires, and wimpy ones at that, made werewolves uber-cool. If you haven't yet discovered his Changeling series (aka Wereling in the USA) then where have you been for the last two years. 2011 sees the publication of the climactic final instalment in this series, and just look at the amazing cover for this book, Zombie Dawn.

David Gatward

Long-time readers of The Book Zone will know just how much I loved David's first two books in his The Dead series, both published in 2010. If you love horror stories laced with demons and an (un)healthy splattering of gore then I beg you to go read my review of his second book, The Dark, and then hunt out this brilliant series.

William Hussey

Before starting this blog I hadn't read a great deal of horror for some years. William Hussey is the author that changed this and since reading his YA debut I have had a renewed thirst for horror fiction and films. Just take a look back at my reviews - before Witchfinder there are very few horror books featured on The Book Zone. I am currently reading the sequel to Dawn of the Demontide, creepily entitled Gallows at Twilight, and all I will say for the moment is that it is everything I had hoped for in a sequel.

Jon Mayhew

Jon's debut book, Mortlock, has everything - nail-biting scenes of extreme horror featuring terrifying supernatural creatures, a fast paced plot, thoroughly believable main characters, a well imagined Victorian London setting vividly described, and his creepiest creation of all - Lorenzo's Incredible Circus. Roll on March 2011 when I will be able to get my hands on a copy of his next book, The Demon Collector.

Alex Milway

Have you ever wondered why there seems to be a total dearth of yetis in kids books? Then you have not yet had the extreme pleasure of discovering Alex Milway's Mythical 9th Division books. With Alex's great illustrations, and hilarious story-telling, these are perfect for the 7+ age group and would make fantastic stocking-fillers this Christmas.

Sarah Silverwood

I think I summed up Sarah's debut YA fantasy novel, The Double-Edged Sword, pretty well in my original review with the following: "In a recent blog post for Gollancz Ms Silverwood described her books as being "... about three things that I love - London, friendship and a sense of the magical". Far be it for me, a lowly book blogger, to try to come up with a better description than the author herself - that one line sums up the story brilliantly. Well almost.... it doesn't mention the great characters, the edge-of-your-seat tension, the frenetic action scenes or the wonderful Nowhere - an alternate London that exists in a sort of parallel universe (it's hard to explain - read the book and it becomes clear as crystal)." Since writing this at the beginning of October my thoughts have gone back to this book on many occasions - I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to reading the sequel in 2011.

Alexander Gordon Smith

The Furnace series (now totalling four books and the fifth and final due in March 2011) is nothing short of brilliant. It is fast-paced. It is frantic. It has cliff-hanger chapter end after cliff-hanger chapter end. It is a cracking thriller series, with some great horror - lashings of bloody, violent, terrifying horror. I love it! If your experience of prison based stories is limited to Prison Break and Shawshank Redemption then your life is not yet complete - go out and read these now!

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Unless stated otherwise all book synopses (in italics at the beginning of each review) are taken from goodreads.com, amazon.co.uk or amazon.com. All books reviewed have been bought by myself unless stated otherwise.